


Permission

by cagestark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adult Peter Parker, Alcohol, M/M, Permission to Cum, Peter is 21, Pining Tony, Thorki is Mentioned, briefly, kink discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-24 11:55:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20705588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cagestark/pseuds/cagestark
Summary: During drinks with the Avengers, Peter admits that he enjoys orgasms more when someone is giving him permission, though since he's single, there isn't anyone in his life to offer it.Generous Tony offers to offer it.





	1. Chapter 1

When Tony sees Peter for the first time in two years, it is from behind the bar on the Avengers’ floor of the Tower. Most floors have a bar—a souvenir leftover from his drinking days when he liked to be able to make himself a whiskey no matter the floor he happened to be on—though he is now celebrating sobriety. _This_ is how he celebrates: by being the most knowledgeable about the liquors he keeps on stock, and by volunteering to make drinks for the others on nights such as this when a group of the Avengers come together to relax and bond.

It was Pepper who convinced him to stop keeping count. After the dusting, he’d broken his years of sobriety—and who could blame him? He’d felt the world crumble to dust, had seen what _was_ his son figure at the time crumble to dust in his arms. Drinking was the healthiest coping mechanism he had. Then, when they’d reversed the Snap, he’d gone off the drink. It had been some of the worst days of his life, getting sober again. Days when the DT’s had been so bad that he couldn’t hold the tools in his workshop and he couldn’t tell what was real or fake, when he snapped at anyone and everything and asked FRIDAY to lock down the lab and turn visitors away.

By the time he’d been fit to see anyone, Peter had left the Tower for college. Tony had stood in the tasteful but empty room, breathing in deep the leftover scent of boyish cologne, ashamed of what the scent did to him.

After all the ups and downs, starting to count his sobriety as Day One had been like rubbing dust in his wounds. He remembered day one thousand, day _two_ thousand, for fuck’s sake. So he stopped keeping track and worked to take every day as it was.

That’s how he ended up here—on the other side of the bar—a seltzer he’d pause to sip at sweating in its glass beneath the bar. The Avengers put his skills to use, asking for rare and obscure drinks that call upon some of his most expensive stock.

“Is Peter coming?” Natasha askes, sipping her martini. She hadn’t quite laughed when he made it for her, sliding it across the bar and asking,_ is that dirty enough for you, Miss Romanoff?_ but it had been a close thing. Her eyes don’t move to him when the rhythm of his shaker stutters at the kid’s name, but Tony knows that she notices. She notices everything.

“He said he was,” Thor booms. The man has no inside voice—though hadn’t he grown up in a palace? Maybe he just needed to be able to hear his voice echo. “He facesnapped me earlier today to say as much.”

“Does he mean facetime or snapchat? I can’t tell,” Tony mutters.

“He means snapchat, unfortunately,” Rhodey says. “Thor’s addicted.”

“I like the filters,” Thor admits. “Look—this one gives me facial hair just like yours, Stark.”

That’s a frightening thought, though he does let Thor coerce him into a selfie. Really, it’d be a shame not to. Thor is handsome enough, and Tony is a goddamn sex symbol. Let the hundred thousand snapchat users that follow Thor save that picture for their own nefarious uses—_you’re welcome_. Just as they’re about to take another picture, a notification comes up on Thor’s phone that says **spidertwink** took a screenshot. Thor’s laugh rattles the glasses behind the bar.

“Peter must have enjoyed our picture,” he says.

“Peter is **spidertwink**?”

“He’s out and proud,” Natasha remarks, lifting an eyebrow at his tone.

“As am I,” Tony says. “But I thought twink was a slur these days.”

“I think he’s reclaimed it.”

“I thought twinks were the delicious cream filled cakes,” Thor says.

“No, you’re thinking of—you know what, buddy, you’re actually not far off.”

This time Natasha does grin, hiding her smile behind her drink.

FRIDAY’s voice interrupts them to say that Peter, their last missing Avenger (except for Bucky and Steve who are taking personal time in a state not to be disclosed, and Bruce who is working with another gamma rad specialist overseas), has entered the building.

“Is he bringing _the boyfriend_?” Clint asks, wiggling his eyebrows.

It’s a result of years of PR-training that keeps Tony from scowling. Peter’s boyfriend had come as a shock, only just less painful than what Tony imagines taking Thor’s hammer to the gut might feel like. May had been the one who told him that Peter was dating an older man—_twelve_ years older, at that!

“What do you want me to do, Tony?” May had asked during their weekly phone calls. (How else was he supposed to get information about how Peter was doing? Reply to the kid’s texts?) “He’s an adult. He’ll do what he thinks is right, regardless of how I feel. I’m trying to be the cool aunt. I’m just thankful he told me at all.”

Tony had a few ideas of what May could do about it: 1. Put her fucking foot down. 2. Lock Peter up in his bedroom and put bars on the windows, special vibranium bars that Tony could easily beg Shuri and T’Challa to have imported.

Anything really. _Anything_, except give her blessing.

“They broke up. Don’t you follow him on Twitter?” Natasha asks. “They made a joint statement a few months ago, about how it was mutual and they’re still friends and they wish each other the best in all things.”

According to May, the break-up itself had been _Peter’s_ idea no matter what Twitter said, which made some feral part of Tony preen.

“What are we talking about,” a voice asks from the door. Peter stands there, dressed in his usual fare: jeans, a graphic t-shirt (figures the kid would wear his own merchandise, a Spider-Man shirt tight enough to leave nothing to the imagination). The first thing Tony thinks when he sees him is that the kid has grown up. He’s no taller, no wider, but the set of his shoulders is unmistakable. He’s wearing his hair differently now, too. More styled. “Who are still friends?”

Tony’s mouth is dry—he licks his lips, and fuck, the kid’s eyes track the movement.

Everybody knows about Peter’s crush on Iron Man. It’d made the morning news when a paparazzo snapped a picture of Peter on his way to classes at MIT with the band of his boxers exposed above his jeans. The IRONMAN decal on them had been unmistakable. A fan on Twitter asked if Peter had a crush on his teammate (teammates, the public considered them, except that after Thanos, threats requiring Peter to be called in from university were non-existent), and though Peter’s very diplomatic answer of_ I have crushes on all of them, have you seen them?_ didn’t single Tony out exclusively—it didn’t say _no_, now, did it?

Tony has worked, very resolutely, to ignore that crush for years (Tony is nearly thirty fucking years older than him, for Christ’s sake, which makes the twelve years between Peter and his ex look like a molehill at the base of the mountain). But crush or no crush, Tony can’t help that he’s missed this kid, that his heart clenches just at the sight of this kid. Tony had moved mountains for him—had risked everything for him. Invented fucking time travel for him.

And a seed is planted, right then and there. A seed that comes to him in the form of a question: would it be so wrong for them to indulge in each other? Are they not two adults, both of which have seen a side of the universe that civilians could never imagine? Who else could he find solace in, if not this sweet, handsome young man?

He pushes that thought away, buries it deep. But that’s the thing about seeds. They grow.

“Hey, kid,” Tony says. He wants to hug the younger man, but changes his mind at the last moment. Tony ghosted Peter for more than a year, ignoring the texts that slowly came further and further apart. Then when he had reached out, it had been Peter doing the ghosting. Maybe their repertoire is lost, maybe there’s no hope for reconciliation. He’s afraid that having a hug rejected might be too much for him to brush off in front of company. “It’s good to see you.”

Peter smiles. His hand isn’t as soft as it was when he was young; he’s developing his own calluses from day’s spent in labs at MIT. And that grip—god. Tony lets go to reach for his drink. Fuck, he’s parched. He needs to tell FRIDAY to prompt him to drink more water. “Hi, Mr. Stark. It’s good to see you too—you look great. As always, I mean. When are you going to get snapchat?” Peter changes the subject, face reddening. “Maybe if Thor had more people to send pictures of the dogs he sees in the park, we individually wouldn’t get so many. Help take up the collective burden!”

“Hardly a burden,” Thor mutters. “Look at this one—Peter, what is this one called again?”

“That’s a golden retriever,” Natasha supplies. “Are you drinking with us tonight, Peter?”

Peter makes a noise, pushing his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know—the, uh, _tests_ I’ve done suggest that even though my metabolism burns it off quickly, it doesn’t take much to affect me.”

“So, you’re a lightweight?” Clint asks. His face is already flushed with alcohol from the drinks Tony has been mixing, not to mention the lager he and Sam have been demolishing. If Bucky finds out they drank all of his imported beer, there will be hell to pay, but at least Tony’s metaphorical pocketbook will be safe.

“Sure,” Peter says, taking a seat on the stool beside Natasha. “But I’ll take a drink, if-if you’re willing to make me one, Mr. Stark.”

“What would you like?” Tony asks. “And kid, for the love of God, start calling me Tony.”

“Start him strong. Make him a whiskey, neat,” Clint suggests. He slips an arm around Peter’s shoulders, like they’re old friends, yet _Tony_ is the one second-guessing a hug. Life isn’t fair.

“I—sure. That sounds fine.”

“A whiskey,” Tony says flatly. “You sure? You don’t really strike me as the whiskey type.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter asks. There’s a fire that ignites behind his eyes, but Tony doesn’t know what it is nor what it’s burning. “What kind of _type_ do you think I am?”

Something softer. Sweeter. More sour. He could think of a dozen mixed drinks off of the top of his head that the kid is more likely to enjoy than whiskey—it had taken Tony years to appreciate the taste, and that was all he could do: appreciate it. But there’s no way to express any of those ideas without coming off as a jackass, and Tony plans to at least make it through an hour of the party before becoming a proper jackass. He pours the drink and slides it across the bar.

Everyone watches while Peter takes a sip. The kid doesn’t sputter like Tony might have expected, but his face twists. Cheeks red, whether from embarrassment or the alcohol (hadn’t he said that it affected him more than it should have otherwise?), Peter forces a smile and nods. “It’s good,” he lies.

“I’ll pass on the compliment to the Macallan distillery.”

That gets a smile out of Peter—a real one. Tony still can tell the difference. The kid’s tells haven’t changed.

The only thing that’s changed is what that smile does to Tony’s heart.

-

An hour later, everyone is well and truly on their way to being drunk. Peter’s low tolerance has been proven time and time again: just minutes after taking sips from his whiskey (that he refuses to let go of), he sways in his seat, eyes heavy lidded. Another sip or two and he _manspreads_, a word that Tony would have preferred to never use outside nor inside his mind, but there is no other word for it: his shoulders relax, one arm slung over the back of the couch, and his legs are loose and wide, the perfect width apart for a man to kneel between.

Peter catches him staring. Instinct makes Tony want to look away, to pretend it was nothing but a glance, but he _can_ look, can’t he? There’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing at all, based on the way Peter’s mouth slips open, head tilting back a little in his drunken drowsiness. Not a moment later, he is sitting up straight, lifting one leg to rest his ankle on his knee—and yeah, he’s adjusting himself. It takes everything inside Tony not to smirk into his seltzer water.

Then again, maybe the conversation around them is just turning him on. It’s certainly keeping Tony’s attention.

“You arranged for them to fuck?” Natasha asks. Her cheeks are flushed prettily, and she’s sitting with her legs tucked underneath her, twirling the toothpick that had pierced her olives between her nimble fingers. “That’s basically a threesome, just half as fun.”

“Thirty-three percent less fun,” Peter chimes in. The room ignores him (too caught up in Sam’s story) but Tony snorts and the grateful look Peter gives him for getting the joke is worth gold.

“No—he had no idea that I told her to seduce him,” Sam says. “I knew she had a thing for him—me and the guy were best friends at the time, so he was always around. I _saw_ the way she looked at him. So for a few weeks I just play it up, right? Give her some dirty talk, bring him up when we’re fucking just to see her get all ashamed and embarrassed. After a while that wasn’t enough, so I told her to go for it. Fucking seduce him. It was a game to see if she could. And God, she was relentless. I gave her fucking tips, too: what to wear, what to say. I’d invite him over and then go out and leave them alone together. He held off for as long as he could—a true bro. Poor guy had no clue I was the one behind it.”

“He thought she was cheating on you?”

Sam hums. “He beat himself up about it until we came clean. Then we DP’d her. Made her dreams come true, swear to God. We broke up a year later but if she doesn’t still get off daydreaming about that, then she’s downright lying.”

“What about you, Clint?” Nat asks. “We want the kinkiest of your kink.”

The question has been the topic of discussion for several minutes now (with several stops along the way for terms to be explained for Thor, not to mention Thor’s goddamn _revelation_ that his kinkiest moments involved _Loki_—his _adopted brother_ which. Yeah. That’s going to take some time for Tony to digest—or purge right from his brain).

“I’ve been pegged,” Clint admits.

Tony rolls his eyes. Peter’s eyebrows are raised to his hairline while he’s both trying to listen eagerly and become a wallflower all at once. He sips at his whiskey again, eyes bouncing from one person to another whenever they speak. All they need is popcorn for this show. Which isn’t a bad thought, actually.

“Something to add, Tony?” Nat mocks.

“If taking it up the ass is kinky, then I’m pulling in a gold at the BDSM-Olympics.”

Clint squawks. Peter spits his drink half-way across the coffee table, a fine spray of 18-year aged whiskey that has everyone in the immediate vicinity cringing away. Gasping for breath, the kid pounds on his own chest, eyes watering. “Sorry, went down the wrong pipe,” he croaks. From her perch in the armchair, Natasha’s eyes are positively glittering.

“Pegging definitely counts as kink, man,” Sam defends, to vigorous nodding from Clint. “Anal is still taboo for plenty of people, and with the added element of a strap-on? That’s kink. If a woman was pegging you even with _your_ history, Tony—”

“Don’t mention that in front of Pepper,” Tony bluffs. “It will bring up old memories, her face will get all flushed—”

“I’d believe you if I didn’t know how Pepper feels about giving or receiving anal,” Natasha chimes in.

“Oh? And tell us, Oracle, how _do_ _you_ know such personal things about my CEO?” Tony asks.

Thor leans over and stage whispers to Peter: “What’s pegging?”

“Peter!” Natasha cries. The kid shrinks in on himself, eyes wide as quarters. “You’ve been quiet. It’s your turn—let’s hear about your kinks.”

Sam groans. “Man, I don’t want to hear about it. He’s like, fifteen—”

“I’m twenty-one,” Peter says. His face is turning a marvelous shade of red, whether from embarrassment or anger. “And—with all due respect, Mr. Wilson—I’m a Gen-z. I’m probably kinkier than you.”

Voices rise all around the room, whether at the burn Peter just gave Sam or indignation on Sam’s behalf, but Tony’s mouth feels dry, incapable of chiming in. He reaches for his glass on the table and takes several sips which don’t help. To be honest, it’s difficult to imagine Peter being interested in anything alternative in the bedroom (not that Tony ever let himself ruminate on such a topic before, and not that he enjoys thinking about Peter having sex with Mr. Ex-Boyfriend). He’s baby faced, innocent, with a heart of gold. Then again, what’s the saying? That it’s always the shy ones?

“Go ahead, kid,” Tony says, voice cutting through the noise. He angles his body so that Peter has his undivided attention. “We’re listening. Regale us with your tales.”

“I—well—it’s hard to think of something when I’m put on the spot—” Sam scoffs. He leans over to Clint and mutters something in the archer’s ear. Peter’s jaw tightens. “Okay. Well. How’s this. So, my ex-boyfriend, Quent. He was like, my top, right?”

Tony is taking internal notes, his internal stenographer banging away on their modified keyboard. _Peter bottoms_. And even though he might have guessed (most people are switches, Tony imagines), confirmation of it is blowing the older man’s mind, even if his face remains calm and smooth.

“We were together for a year and he was older so, more experience, you know. He’s the one who introduced me to, like, _everything_. He had this thing though—” Peter stops, pressing his lips together into a thin line. He reaches out for his drink and takes a large swallow. Throughout the night, he’s gotten better about not wincing at the taste and burn. The drink gives him some courage, because he barrels on. “—he had this thing where he wanted me to ask _permission_ before I could—you know. Cum.”

“That’s kinky,” Natasha admits. Tony would agree, but he’s lost the capacity for speech imagining Peter underneath him, face pinched with his attempts to hold off his orgasm until Tony (not some _Quent_, no one else) gave him permission. Tony hasn’t had a sip of alcohol tonight, but his head is swimming with an entirely different intoxication. Thankfully, it would take more than just the thought to get him hard.

“Oh, that’s not the kinky part,” Peter says, waving her away. “We broke up a few months ago, right? But now it’s like I’m conditioned. Every time I’m—” he moves his hand in a repeated motion over his crotch, and Tony’s eyes widen infinitesimally. “—solo, you know. When I cum, it’s no good. I feel _bad_, like I’m breaking somebody’s rules.

“But I found that I can—uh—_get permission_ from other people. In a roundabout way. And it helps.”

“Wait,” says Sam, scrambling for his phone in his pocket. “Wait, wait, _wait_—”

Peter hides his mouth behind his hand, eyes looking anywhere but at Sam.

“Two weeks ago, Peter sent me a message—everybody, shut up, listen to this—” Sam clears his throat, reading. “We were talking about tonight, this very fucking party, and Peter asked, _can I come_. I said, _I don’t see why not_, but he said, _so.._? I was like, _so what?_—”

“Get to the point,” Clint prompts.

“—he beat around the bush with me until I said, word for word, _Yes Peter you can come_—”

“And I thank you _very_ much, Mr. Wilson,” Peter says, exuding faux innocence.

The entire room breaks to pieces. Peter catches Tony’s eye and his laughter dies off, though the smile doesn’t fade. Tony lifts his eyebrows. Peter shrugs as if to say, _what can you do_? On a whim, Tony lifts his glass and they toast each other from across the room, water to whiskey. For the rest of the party (even during Twister, which Tony volunteers to spin the wheel for—and if anyone notices that the colors Tony calls out keep Peter separated from the other fitter gentlemen playing the game, no one calls him out on it)—Tony is lost in thought.

-

The sun is rising.

Natasha is asleep (probably) sitting up on the sofa, her head tilted back to rest against the back of the cushions, hair mussed. In her lap is Clint’s head, the man snoring gently. Thor had gone back to Asgard hours ago, but the remnants of him could be seen scattered around the apartment: copious drafts of beer, an end table that he had accidentally smashed to pieces when Mjolnir slipped from his drunken hand. Sam has taken up residence in the guest room, and Tony doesn’t imagine that he will make an appearance until sunset.

At the bar he sits, Peter beside him. Neither of them are drunk, though Peter looks exhausted, an elbow resting on the bar, his chin planted in his palm.

“I got way too used to sleeping through the night during break. This is good practice for the all-nighters I’ll have to pull when the fall semester starts.”

Tony smiles gently even as the reminder that Peter is leaving—always leaving—makes his chest ache. They’ve been talking for an hour or more, catching up on everything that’s happened. It goes unspoken for a while, that these are things they should have never had to catch each other up on. If Tony hadn’t fucked up after the un-Dusting, he and Peter would have had a relationship all these years.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Tony says. “That was on me. I was in a dark place. I should have just communicated that instead of shutting everyone out, but my Masters Degrees aren’t in communication.”

“You tried to make it right, but by then, I just—I was at school, and I was spending so much time with Quentin. It was easier to pretend like you weren’t making effort,” Peter admits, rubbing at one eye with his palm. “Then at least I didn’t feel so guilty for not answering you.”

“I forgive you, kid,” Tony says. “And for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t have answered me either.”

“’m not a kid,” Peter mumbles.

“Oh, that’s clear. I was awake for your class 401 on orgasm delay and denial.”

Peter groans, burying his face in both of his hands. “Ignore that,” he says. “God, that’s so embarrassing.”

Tony laughs. “You’re among—friends, it’s no big deal. At least you aren’t like me, with your sexual proclivities making page 1 of 100 on Pornhub.”

Peter peaks through his fingers, bloodshot eyes wide. “_You’re_ on Pornhub?”

“Not any_more_. Tech genius, remember? FRIDAY is constantly using facial recognition technologies to make sure that my NC-17 home videos stay offline, but ten, twenty years ago, they made their rounds. Mostly on the major news networks.

“But what’s a little homemade pornography when compared to secretly getting off with a distant friend’s permission?” Tony teases. Then it comes out before he can stop it, the filter between his brain and mouth always a little slow at catching inappropriate comments: “I’m a little offended that you never asked _me_.”

Those words hang between them for what must only be a split second, but it feels like millennia. Empires rise and fall. Jupiter makes an entire rotation, 400 million miles away. Peter stares, blankly. The change comes over him slowly: his eyes begin to bulge, his mouth drop, cheeks flushing. “I—what?”

Tony clears his throat, thumb rubbing the rim of the glass in his hand. Is he overplaying his cards? “I just mean, you never messaged me. Asking ‘to come’.”

“Well, we—we weren’t on speaking terms, I guess. If I’d messaged you, you would have been suspicious.”

“I guess that’s true,” Tony hums.

“And now my plot has been exposed,” Peter says, rolling his eyes. “I’m going to have to find some other way to—err—you know.”

Tony shifts in his seat. His foot begins to tap, anxious and silent on the floor. He can’t even look at Peter when he offers this, doesn’t want to see if there’s disgust on those precious features. “Look. If you need permission. I could give it to you kid. No ruse needed. Just message me.”

“Really?” Peter asks. He sounds breathless.

“Sure—why not?” 

Peter’s alarm begins to go off on his phone. He scrambles to silence it, giving anxious glances to the sleeping Avengers across the room, but a stampede wouldn’t wake Clint and Natasha with out much Russian vodka they polished off towards the early dawn hours. When Tony looks at his watch, he sees that it’s seven in the morning.

“I should get going,” Peter says. “I promised I’d bring May breakfast.”

“Let me send you in a car. I don’t want you on the subway.”

“That’d be great, Mr. Stark. Thanks.”

They part at the penthouse door. He puts out a hand to shake Peter’s again, but the young man surprises him and steps in for a hug. They are nearly the same height, so Peter just buries his face in Tony’s neck, pressing them together firmly from chest to shoes. The kid is warm, so fucking solid, breath hot against where he’s got his face pressed in the crook of Tony’s shoulder. Tony shivers all over—but he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He wraps his arms around the kid, one hand pressed into his lengthening curls, holding him close. Tony won’t turn down any more opportunities to be close to this man he admires—this man he’s infatuated with.

“I’m going to miss you, kid,” Tony says.

“I’ll come back. Soon. If you want me to?”

“I do. I _do_.”

“You’ve still got my number. Text me, or something,” Peter says after they draw apart. His cheeks are flushed—and yeah, he’s angling his hips to try to hide the beginning of an erection. Tony does his best to keep his eyes on Peter’s and not embarrass the kid half to death. Inside, he’s preening. Fuck, the wonders Peter works on his ego.

The young man disappears into the elevator (and as the doors are shutting, Tony catches him pumping a triumphant fist in air). He can’t help it. He sags back against the frame of the penthouse’s door and grins, feeling twenty years younger. “FRI,” he says to the ceiling. “I really hope you got a glimpse of that. I want to see it on repeat.”

And by the time Peter has made it back to the apartment, he has a friend request on Snapchat from one **_UKnowWho._**


	2. Chapter 2

With a young man’s libido, it shouldn’t have surprised him that Peter messaged so soon.

The sun is rising, and Tony is crawling into bed. When he was CEO of the company at least he had more incentive to adhere to typical sleep cycles. Now that the company is safe(r) in Pepper’s much more capable hands, some other aspects of his life have declined. Mostly, his basic human functions like eating and sleeping (who really cares about those, though?). On this instance, he spent all night in the lab looking at the latest specs for Peter’s suit.

Some people give roses—but this was Tony’s love language. Armor was his bouquet.

There comes a point where no matter how interesting his work is, Tony has to sleep. He stumbles his way into the elevator wearing the clothes from two days ago and doesn’t even have the strength to tell FRIDAY to take him to the penthouse. His girl knows, though, and the elevator moves like she’s read his mind. He’ll brush his teeth which are feeling particularly slimy and then collapse for sixteen hours and do it all again.

Once his mouth is clean and minty, he strips himself naked and collapses onto the bed, face down. Fuck, his whole body aches, and from what? Sitting? Bending over blueprints on the table? Kneeling down to retrieve the proper tools after DUM-E gives him the wrong size wrench again? He remembers his younger days when it took a hell of a lot more than that to even wind him. He’s getting old—

That’s when his phone chimes on the table. He turns his head so his mouth isn’t pressed into the comforter and croaks, “FRI who is it?”

“Peter, boss.”

Tony blinks. Then he sits up, head spinning. Adrenalin has his hands shaking when he reaches for his phone. Thank God it opens at his touch, because he can hardly stand the briefest obstruction between him and this text, wondering if it’s some dorky message the likes of which Peter sent for months after the un-Dusting even when he received no answer, or wondering if it’s…something _else_.

**mr. stark**

Tony blinks. That’s all the text reads. Rather anticlimactic.

**Yes?** The message immediately shows that it is seen, like Peter has the thread of messages open and is waiting. Tony shivers, stomach churning with anticipation. What’s the kid doing messaging him at—7:40 in the morning on a—fuck, who knows what day it is.

**sorry. nevermind**. Oh no. Tony isn’t going to let this opportunity for conversation slip between his fingers.

**Come on, kid. What’s up?**

**did you mean it? last weekend?** Tony is just about to ask what Peter means specifically when another message comes in. **about you know, helping me?**

Tony sucks in a breath. His fingers are an anxious blur typing away at his phone. **Of course Pete.**

The symbol appears to show that Peter is texting—and then not. And then texting—and then not. Tony can almost feel the kid’s anxiety through the phone, the indecision. He scrambles for something to say that might put him at ease, but then changes his mind. This isn’t a decision that he wants to coax Peter into: if Peter comes to him (for permission, for _anything_), Tony wants it to be of the kid’s own free will. He contents himself to be a bystander.

Finally a text comes through: **can you? pls?**

These texts aren’t anything like the way Peter usually texts. The younger man is typically a stickler for capitalization, punctuation. He says haha instead of lol, for fuck’s sake. Tony groans when he realizes—the texts are short and lazy because Peter is typing one handed. He’s typing one handed because his other hand is _occupied_. The idea seduces Tony. He can imagine it, Peter waking up early on a (seriously, what fucking day is it) sunny morning, tucked into the bed of his youth at his aunt’s apartment. May rises and works before the sun, so surely he is alone, warm, rested, the remnants of a pleasant dream drifting in and out of his mind like sand in a sieve. He’s awoken hard, cock aching, and why shouldn’t he reach down and palm at himself? It isn’t until he was reaching the end that he remembers Tony and the man’s offer.

**Can I what? Use your words**

**fuck. ur mean! can i?**

**Can you what? **

**can i cum pls. **Another message comes through, just a brief: **pls** but Tony can feel his desperation. He’s more than half hard now, aching between his legs, so he reaches down to grip his cock tightly, groaning at the brief relief the pressure offers.

Still…he wants to tease this boy.

**Sure, kid. **Then, he says no more. Because that’s not enough, is it?

**mr. stark pls will u say it? need u to say it**

That shouldn’t go to his cock the way it does, the _Mr. Stark_, the moniker that emphasizes the age difference and power imbalance between them. But fuck, it makes his balls ache, a bead of precum dripping down over his knuckles. He wonders if Peter is wet and leaking, if he’s really so desperate for it as he seems over text. Tony crumbles. He can deny this man nothing.

**You can cum. **

There’s no reply, though the message was instantly seen. Tony lets himself lie back flat on the bed, fisting his cock. Behind his eyelids are images of Peter, imaginations of what the young, sweet man looks like when he cums, when ecstasy carries him away like it’s a river. Miles away, in Queens, Peter Parker is cumming—and it’s because Tony told him he could.

The phone buzzes, and Tony glances over long enough to read the message that comes through: **Thank you so much Mr. Stark**—and Tony cums, shooting his load over his fist and his abs, the pleasure so keen that it’s almost too much. Just from fucking his own goddamn hand and thinking about Peter doing the same. When his breathing calms down and he finally has control over his limbs again, he makes sure to type, **Anytime, Pete.**

**-**

The kid is fucking insatiable. It’s a text that wakes him up, fourteen hours later. His bladder aches from now waking to piss, but it all fades away when he sees Peter’s text: **help, pls? **

This time Tony doesn’t tease. **You can cum Pete.**

**ty ty ty **comes through right away.

Tony groans. He’s hard again, and it takes several long minutes for his erection to wane enough for him to stumble to the bathroom and relieve himself.

Thirty minutes later, before Tony’s coffee (yes, at 10 in the evening) has even finished percolating, another text comes through. **mr. stark, pls**

Tony makes a mistake—but could anyone blame him? The kid has messages him three times in the same day. How often does Peter jerk off? How’s his cock still intact? Then again—such is youth. Most of Tony’s teenage years are blurs of sex and alcohol and MIT, but he figures that he would have slicked his cock any change he got. Not that Peter is a teenager anymore. Tony is so incredulous that he types back: **Again? Really?**

He wants to take it back right away. If he could reach into the phone and erase the words, he would, but the message shows that Peter has already read it. It’s too late. Tony can only backtrack. But before his apology is half-typed, Peter responds: **sorry. Never mind. Sorry!**

**No, Pete, I’m sorry. You can cum, okay?**

**It’s cool,** Peter texts. **Sorry to bug you Mr. Stark!**

Exclamation points are both the salt Peter sprinkles liberally over his texts and also the shield he uses to hide his hurt feelings behind. As emotionally inept as Tony often finds himself, he figures he can determine which one Peter is using now.

**I’m sorry, kid. I’m an old man; it’s safe to say our masturbatory habits are different. No shame in having a libido like yours. **

**It’s not always like this,** Peter admits, which—okay, that’s interesting.

**What’s got you in a tizzy? **

**Ugh, forget I mentioned it! Really. Forget all of this. I’m really sorry. I’ll just go back to—the way I was. No big deal. **

**Big deal,** Tony says, smacking himself in the forehead. It makes the headache that’s brewing (similar to his coffee) throb, but he deserves it. **Come on, kid. I’m awake, I’m here. You’re not bugging me. **

**Seriously, it’s okay. **

**If I shamed you, then it really isn’t. Come on kid, what do you want me to do? Beg?**

It takes Peter an entire minute to message back, and when he does, he manages to knock the breath from Tony with just a single word: **maybe**.

Tony can work with that. The change in punctuation, the slow reply, the suggestiveness of it all. Tony can absolutely work with that.

**Please?**

**pls what. use ur words**

**You little shit,** Tony types, smile so wide that it makes his cheeks ache. **Please, will you cum? **

**oh mr. stark pls call me names i love it ;)**

**Jesus fucking Christ. Are you serious? **

**nooo haha. ask me again?**

With a fondness that makes his heart (and cock) ache, Tony types: **Please Peter, will you cum? **

Afterwards comes the trademarked radio silence. His mind fills in the blanks: Peter cums—and in Tony’s mind it is spectacular, the best orgasm he’s ever had except for the one thirty minutes ago. Then there is plenty of basking in the afterglow, chest heaving, skin slick with sweat. Then, like clockwork, he thanks Tony, like what the older man is doing for him is such a fucking hardship, like Tony isn’t sitting in his penthouse sipping coffee and palming his cock because the kid has him so worked up.

**Come to the lab today. Your suit is overdue for an upgrade. **

-

If he was worried that it would be awkward, then he was worried for nothing. Peter arrives at his earliest convenience, hair damp from a shower, dressed so sweetly in jeans and a light sweater. It’s been years, but he stills knows the way to the lab, and if he’s surprised that FRIDAY grants him entrance without bothering to check if it’s okay with Tony, then he doesn’t show it.

“Hi Mr. Stark,” Peter says. His voice has stopped cracking in the time he’s been away, grown only a hint deeper but at least more level. The difference between this young man and the boy Tony knew years ago could not be starker, and the confidence Peter has now is just one part of it. The quiet assurance he exudes as he sets his bag down and crosses the lab to stand shoulder to shoulder with Tony and stare at the blueprints on the table—it makes Tony feel. _Something_. “How’s it going?”

He can smell Peter’s bodywash: something woodsy, pleasing though generic. The kid plants his hands on the edge of the lab table, and they are larger than they were (though still delicate, tinier than his own)—and they are also the hands that Peter was using to jerk his cock just hours before. Tony has to take a deep, silent breath in through his nose, letting it out long and slow through his mouth. He’s a fucking middle-aged adult. He can control himself.

“Going good, kid,” Tony says, voice rough. “I mean—is the suit in disgraceful condition? Absolutely. But can I fix it? Of course. I’d be insulted if you suggested otherwise.”

Peter hums, face twisted with faux innocence. “Maybe if someone answered my texts, I would have been able to drop the suit off for a tune up.”

And God, when did the kid get so fucking sassy and snarky? Tony is tempted to say that he’s rubbing off on Peter (and what an image that leaves him with), but considering they haven’t interacted in years now, he knows that he had nothing to do with it. This is just Peter: quick witted, sharp tongued. He’s turned on and endeared in equal measure.

“Okay, that’s your one freebie because I probably deserve it—”

“_Probably_?”

“What’d I say? _One_ freebie. Or else I’ll ask Karen to make me a montage of your most embarrassing moments on patrol.”

“Alright, alright,” Peter grumbles, smiling. “What are you doing to it? Any room for some brainstorming? Because I’ve got ideas—”

They talk shop for over two hours. Forty-five minutes in, Peter gets hot and takes off his sweater. There is a thin wifebeater underneath, white and nearly translucent considering the way it clings to his abs and chest, and obviously the change in temperature is affecting him judging by the state of his nipples. Tony nearly stabs himself with a screwdriver (blames it on one of the bots) and then keeps his eyes down. Fuck, this is no time to get turned on. Labs are dangerous.

“I’m sorry about the other day,” Peter says when they’re breaking for pizza. He folds his slice like a true New Yorker. “I mean—yesterday, I guess. Earlier today? You know what I mean.”

“Really, Peter, no need to apologize,” Tony says. He works hard to tame his tongue. He’s already fucked up once by speaking too hastily to Peter, he needs to display some self-control so that he doesn’t say something that he doesn’t mean. “I’m sorry if I shamed you. Trust me, I had a very—ah—active sex life when I was your age. Glass houses, and such. Don’t think I ever had such a decent refractory period though—”

Peter groans. “I think it’s the spider bite,” he admits. “Does masturbation even count as a sex life? Because it seems like the opposite to me. A sex un-life or something.”

“A sex life is whatever you make it, kid. And please never say ‘sex un-life’ again. Makes me think of pubescent vampires.”

“Can do. Well, I’m still sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you. I guess now that I’ve got someone to tell me it’s okay, it feels so much _better_. Like, before, in my dorm after Quentin and I broke up, I’d feel so wrong. I tried not to—you know—at all unless I really had to.”

“And now you’re like a starving man at a Golden Corral.”

“You’re way better than a Golden Corral, Mr. Stark.”

Tony’s mouth quirks into a smile. “Thanks, kid. I’m glad someone thinks I’ve still got it.” Peter’s mouth moves, like he’s muttering something under his breath, but whatever it is is lost. Damn, Tony wishes he had enhanced senses. “Can I ask you a question? Feel free to say no.”

“Sure,” Peter says, perking up. Tony could probably ask for his social security number and Peter would give it to him. “Go for it.”

“Is it really such a dramatic difference? Between the sessions without permission and the ones with. I mean, you really get off on the whole permission thing, don’t you?”

Peter’s eyes get heavy, distant, like he’s far away and thoughtful, seeing images that Tony can’t. His voice is a little too breathless for it to be platonic, and what it does to Tony is downright suggestive. Erotic. “I love it. I love knowing that my pleasure has, like, a purpose. I love someone else being in control of it. I love feeling like I’m being good for someone. None of that melds with being single. It sucks.”

Tony’s mouth is dry, and he knows that if he were to swallow his throat would give an audible click. He’s half-hard, and there’s no way to hide it, not unless he shifts like a kid with his first boner. All he can do is pray that Peter doesn’t notice. “Yeah. Yeah, I feel you on that regard.”

“Did—” Peter hesitates. Tony waves him on. “_Do_ you, uh, ever bottom? Mr. Stark? I know you’re out as bisexual and everything.”

“I switch,” Tony admits. (What a fucking world he lives in; if anyone had told him years ago that he’d be talking sex with Peter Parker someday, he would have laughed in their face.) “So I have bottomed before. For men and women.”

“That’s—that’s cool,” says Peter. “So, you’ve topped before too. Did you ever have anybody, anybody like me? Who liked that?”

“Nobody is like you, Peter,” Tony says. Judging by the way Peter’s face falls, those words came out wrong. He weighs his pros and cons—Peter is too important to him for Tony to risk coming on too strong, but he can’t let the kid think that he’s some sort of alien. Young adulthood is tough enough (lets heap being gay and a super-hero on top of it). “I don’t mean that as a bad thing. I’ve been with all sorts of people who have had all sorts of likes and dislikes. There’s nothing that I’d bat an eyelash at, anymore. I just meant that it’s never affected me like this before.”

“Affected you?” Peter asks. “Affected you how?”

Tony clears his throat. _Delicate, Tony. Delicate._ “Come on, Pete. An attractive man, and I’m in charge of whether he feels good or not? That’s a heady thing.”

Peter gapes like a fish. He leans forward to return his half-eaten pizza slice to the box. “What are you saying?” Peter asks, voice pitching upwards (God, Tony hopes that isn’t hysteria he detects). “An attractive man, or, or _me_?”

Tony feels his eyebrows drawing together. He says, slowly like a man tip-toeing blind through a dark room, likely to bump his shin on the end table at any moment: “You _are_ an attractive man.”

It happens again: Peter’s face falls. He rests his elbows on his knees and lets his hands dangle dejectedly between his legs, and for the life of him, Tony searches his words but can’t find where he went wrong. Peter makes an excuse, something about friends he’s supposed to be meeting up with, and makes a hasty retreat. The smile he gives Tony (accompanied by a pitiful little wave goodbye) is a pained thing. And Tony feels it, too, right in his chest where the arc reactor used to rest.

Tony lets his head fall back against the couch cushions after the door closes behind the young man. “Good job, Tony,” he mutters to himself. “Real nice.”

-

Peter doesn’t contact him for three days.

But when at last he does, at a quarter past three in the morning, he doesn’t text. He _calls_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk to me   
tumblr: cagestark


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a quick lil thing. notice that there are FOUR chapters, now. Next should be the big finish ;)

Tony sleeps through the first call. In his dreams, FRIDAY has a bug that he can’t seem to fix. Her speech functions aren’t legible, just a shrill ringing that comes from all around him whenever he asks her a question. For a moment, blinking awake in the darkness of his bedroom after only one hour of sleep, he thinks that his dreams are true, because the ringing has followed him into reality.

But it’s just his phone on the nightstand. He slaps a hand on it, squinting at the bright screen. It’s Peter, which makes his throat clench for reasons both delightful and dreadful. It’s been radio silence on the kid’s end for nearly three whole days, all of Tony’s messages going ignored, and he can’t help but feel like all the progress they had made in repairing their relationship was lost. But here Peter is, calling. There is a previous missed call from him, too, and a half dozen unread text messages that Tony had slept through.

He doesn’t bother opening them, just hits the Answer Call button and plasters the phone to the side of his throbbing head. His voice is rough when he says, “Bit past your bedtime, isn’t it?”

Music plays in the background, with an undercurrent of raucous voices. Fabric brushes across the phone (and he can hear Peter’s voice in the distance, laughing at something), so for a moment Tony believes that Peter has butt-dialed him. He’s out with friends, having a good time, and just happened to accidentally call the man who has been hopelessly pining after him for the last three days. Of course. That’s just Tony’s luck.

Then Peter’s voice is loud and clear and joyous: “Mr. Stark!”

Tony can’t help it. A smile blooms across his face, like a flower that can grow in the darkness of his bedroom. He can recognize the slurred words—Peter is drunk. “Hey, Pete. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I was—shh, quit, quit, I’m calling—oh my god you’re obnoxious! Mr. Tony, I mean, Mr. _Stark_. Are you, um, are you like, _busy_?”

“It’s three in the morning. I’m in bed, kid. What’s up?”

Peter sucks in a breath. “You’re in _bed_?” he whispers into the phone. Then, away from the phone: “Hey, get your elbow out of my side! Sorry, Mr. Stark? Are you still there? Okay, well, if you’re in bed then I’m sure I can call someone else—”

“Peter. What do you need?”

“I’m stuck at this bar in Brooklyn. I’d walk home but public intoxication is—it’s a real thing. Harry says he’d give me a lift—”

“Harry? Who the hell is Harry?”

“Harry from the _bar_. He bought me a martini, he’s so posh Mr. Stark, not as posh as you of course, but—”

“Do not go home with Harry,” Tony barks. He rolls out of bed, head throbbing as soon as he is upright. Fuck, he needs to lay off the caffeine or something. “Text me the address. No more drinks, unless it’s water. And kid? Stay put.”

-

Tony takes a self-driving car. He’s sober (of course), but if he’s exhausted enough to be a danger in his lab then he’s exhausted enough to be a danger on the road. He could wake Happy at three in the morning, but Tony isn’t _cruel_. The GPS takes him to the address Peter sent him, and he leaves the car idling at the curb, not at all concerned about it being there upon his exit. The doors won’t open for anyone save him.

It’s been a long time since Tony was inside a bar like this—years, or more. He tended to indulge only at home or in more upscale environments, but this is obviously a place for hardworking, blue collar individuals to come after a long day to drink away their 9 to 5 sorrows. Or for young spiderlings who are looking for a good time. It’s obvious that Peter has found it, too, based on the way he’s leaning against the bar, elbows planted on the glossy wood, hips out turning the curve of his back into a downright tantalizing arch.

Tony figures that the parasite next to him, ghosting a hand over his shoulder is probably Harry.

A woman seated at the table beside the door gets so excited at the sight of Tony that she spills her drink all over herself—and that’s one way to make a person wet, at least. Peter’s face fucking lights up at the sight of Tony, and it’s like those three long days of silence melt away when the kid plasters their bodies together in a hug.

“Mr. Stark, you came so fast!”

“Not words I hear often, I want that on the record—”

Harry snorts. 

“Are you good to go, kid? Got your wallet, keys, watch?”

“I have a phone Mr. Stark,” Peter hiccups, muttering the words into Tony’s blazer. “I don’t need a watch when I have a phone.”

“Hey, don’t forget this—” Harry is scrawling something down on a napkin from the bar.

Tony takes just long enough to confirm that it’s a phone number before tossing it over his shoulder. “Thanks! So nice to meet you! Can hardly wait to never see you again.”

He has to half-carry the young man out of the bar. The cooler night air seems to do him good, as he perks up and looks more alert when Tony opens the door and helps him into the backseat. He spends the first ten minutes back to May’s talking about how incredible the self-driving car is, about how Tesla can’t even dream of this sophistication, not for another ten years or so.

Tony lets his head rest back against the headrest, Peter’s voice lapping over him like oceans at the shore. He hears the click of a seatbelt being undone and then Peter is a burning hot presence, pressing against him side-to-side. The kid smells of the bar: smoke, alcohol, and underneath that the typical woodsy scent of his body wash.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter breaths. They’re close enough that the breath from the words brushes against him, and he can smell the vodka and mint of Peter’s last drink.

Tony sits very still, the throbbing of his head disappearing while his senses zero in on other things: the feel of Peter, the heat of him, the smell of him, the way the Tony can almost feel the kid’s heartbeat jackhammering against his arm. “What is it, kid?”

Peter’s head rests on Tony’s shoulder. “’m sorry. I’m ghosting you again, and I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t,” Tony says, gentle. Peter’s hand is close enough to Tony’s that he reaches out to pat it, smooth skin under the rough pads of his fingertips. He wants to leave it there, let that warmth soak up into his palm and down to his bones, but he’s resolute in letting Peter make the first move. Tony sighs, clenching his hand into a fist on his thigh. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Peter says. His tongue sounds too thick for his mouth, words still a little slurred. He lets his head go lax until it rests against Tony’s shoulder, and the older man does his best not to breathe and jostle it. Tony will hold his breath until he turns blue, if he has to. “I _miss_ you.”

“You just miss cumming,” Tony says slyly.

Peter laughs, shaking Tony with it. “That too. Fuck. I’ve got blue balls, Mr. Stark.”

“Poor thing,” says Tony, rolling his eyes.

Peter turns his head upwards so that he’s staring at Tony’s jaw. If he notices the heavy way Tony’s throat bobs as he swallows, he doesn’t mention it. “I miss _you_ too, though.”

“I miss you too, kid,” says Tony around the lump in his throat. “Always. As soon as you leave.”

“Don’t let me leave anymore,” Peter mumbles. His eyes are closed.

“We don’t do that to the people we—care about.” God, had Tony nearly slipped up, had he nearly said _the people we love?_ Wouldn’t _that_ be a shock to the drunken young man next to him. “If they don’t want to be with us, we have to let them go. Does that make sense?”

Peter hums, fast asleep. After the kid starts to snore, Tony lets his own head lean to rest on the nest of curls smelling faintly of smoke and sweat and shampoo. He tries to tell himself that he can have this. He can be content with this. If this is all of Peter that he gets—he’ll be okay.

Somehow.

-

Fifty minutes later, he is crawling back into bed for the second time that night. He had helped a sleepy Peter up the stairs to his apartment and knocked on the door until May had awoken, because Peter couldn’t find his keys. May took it like a champ—with a kid as good as Peter, this certainly wasn’t the norm. Judging by the look on her face, it amused her more than anything, even when Peter ate half a sleeve of Saltine crackers and got the crumbs all over the floor.

Tony had dozed on the way back to the Tower, and when he finally made it to his bed, he hadn’t even undressed, just collapsed into the rumpled bedding.

And when his phone buzzed in his pocket, he was determined to ignore it. Peter was home and safe, and everything else could fucking wait until the morning. Even when the person double-texts, then triple-texts. Tony even ignores ringing of the first call, and then doubt starts to creep into his anxious, exhausted brain. What if Peter had had too much to drink and he was sick? What if it was May calling, needing his help?

Groaning, Tony manages to roll himself onto his side and pull his phone from his pocket.

“This better be good, kid,” Tony croaks into the phone without even saying hello.

There is a moment of silence punctuated only with a gasp. “_Fi-nal-ly_,” Peter groans into the phone. “Took you long enough.”

“Yeah, well, it’s five in the goddamn morning, Pete. Can it wait until, I don’t know, Tuesday?”

There is rustling in the background, Tony’s phone sophisticated enough to pick up the muted movement. “Nuh-uh,” Peter breaths. “It can’t wait. Very important.”

“What is it?” Tony asks, rubbing at the tender spot between his eyes, where the migraine centers beneath his thick skull. “Are you sick? Hurt? If not, you’re about to be.”

“I am,” Peter says, soft and tortured. “I’m hurting. My dick hurts, _real_ bad, Mr. Stark.”

Did Peter fucking Parker call him, drunk, for a goddamn booty call?

_God_, he hopes so.

“I’m going to need you to repeat that, Peter, because I think I might be having a stroke.”

Peter groans. “C’mon Mr. Stark. Help me, _help_ me, please. Please?”

“I—help you with _what_, kid? This isn’t how we usually do things. Talk to me.” Like Tony doesn’t fucking know, like he isn’t just desperate to hear Peter say it. But if he’s being tortured (and sleep deprivation is certainly cruel and unusual), then he thinks he’s entitled to do some torturing of his own.

“Need to cum,” Peter says, voice soft and low. His breaths are fast, panting into the phone, and in the background is the rustling of blankets that suggests Peter is jerking himself off as they speak. Tony feels his cock jolt, blood flowing south, and he nearly groans himself. “Been days. Please, Mr. Stark, it’s so much better when you help me, feels so good—”

Tony’s head drops back against his pillow. His eyes squeeze shut, focusing on the sounds Peter is making. The gasps he’s giving off are quiet, dampened. Maybe he has the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder so that his free hand can muffle his mouth. “Go ahead, kid,” Tony says. He reaches down to palm himself, making sure to keep his voice steady to not give Peter any indication of what the older man is doing. “Cum, Pete.”

Peter whimpers, a soft, feminine sound. “Not there yet, ‘m trying, wait, wait—_waitwaitwait_—”

“I’m waiting,” Tony says. Feeling like the biggest perv in Manhattan, he lets his thumb rub across the sensitive head of his cock where it is still enclosed in his jeans. Why he feels bad, he doesn’t know: Peter is jerking off, why can’t Tony? 

“God,” Peter gasps. “I can’t believe I called you—_fuck_—I’m _sorry_—I tried not to but I haven’t been able to cum in three days and I’m dying without it, and you smelled so good in the car. I can _still_ smell you—”

Tony’s throat clenches tight with arousal and fondness. “It’s okay, Pete. Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not, it’s not, but I can’t stop, _please_ don’t ask me to—”

Tony exhales heavily. He reaches down to unbutton and unzip his jeans, pulling free his aching cock and squeezing at the base of it. “I wasn’t going to ask you to. Don’t stop.”

Peter keens softly. “God, Mr. Stark, your voice, why the hell do you have a voice like that, it’s not—it’s not _fair_—”

“You’re fucking cute,” Tony chuckles. “You can quote me on that, by the way. I’m willing to go on the record as having said that.”

“Yes,” Peter mutters. “Don’t stop, please.”

“Are you getting off on me _talking_?” Tony can’t help it: he laughs, full and loud.

“Be nice to me,” Peter whines. Tony smiles fondly into the dark (he doesn’t think he’s ever smiled so much while jerking off in his life) and says nothing. The silence is just as artful as Peter’s drunkenly honest words: little gasps, groans, the furious background sound of Peter jerking his cock. It takes Tony right to the edge, so he backs off, slows his fist even as his cock spits precum. He’ll wait—he wants to cum when Peter does.

“Getting close, kid?” Tony asks, voice even. “Some of us have been awake for thirty-one hours and need to sleep.”

Peter whimpers, and the sounds in the background increase. “Yes, yes, close—_please_, can I cum Mr. Stark?”

“Yes, Peter,” Tony says, words breathier than he’d like them to be. It’s so much better to hear those words, the tone with which the young man says them, the neediness. Tony’s cock aches, muscles clenching, balls pulling up tight in anticipation. And the next sentence comes out without him meaning for it to, because what he means to say is _cum_, but what he really says is: “_Cum for me_.”

Peter shouts, chokes it off with a groan. The next noise is soft and high, effeminate, the sweetest, most sensual _“Oh, god,”_ and that’s it for Tony. He mashes his finger at the button that will mute his end of the call and lets the phone drop flat by his ear, fisting his cock desperately. Not completely sure that he muted the call properly, he presses his hand flat over his mouth, holding in the pleasured sounds that want to rip free from his throat as his cock bursts, liquid heat dripping down his knuckles and splattering against his abs. By the time he has finished and it’s safe to take his hand away, Peter is _still making noise_. Whines that make Tony’s gut ache with need.

“Wanna go again,” Peter slurs, drunk on arousal. “’m still hard. Can I?”

“Jesus,” Tony whispers, more to himself than to Peter.

He’s just about to answer affirmatively (he could listen to Peter orgasm day and night like a song on repeat), when a sound comes that chills him: the rap of knuckles on a door. In the distant, May calls: “Peter? Are you okay sweetie? You getting sick?”

Peter sucks in a breath—and the phone cuts off. He’s hung up on Tony.

“You little shit,” Tony mutters. He stumbles to the bathroom to clean himself, one eye on his cellphone waiting for the screen to light up with a text from Peter, but it never does. By the time he crawls back into bed, the adrenalin of it all has worn off and exhaustion sets back in. His last thought is a desperate hope that sleep doesn’t make the memory of the phone call fade, and that when he wakes in the morning it will be as sharp as if Peter had just hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: cagestark


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *steve rogers voice* I could write this all day
> 
> Will be 5 chapters now

How do they go on?

That’s a question for yesterday, always for yesterday. Because _today_, they go on like this: by not talking about it. Tony isn’t sure if Peter even remembers the things he said during his drunken adventures. But Tony remembers, and he thinks to himself that there’s no way that he can see the kid and not _see_ him, not _hear_ him, the way he begged to cum, the way he whimpered Tony’s moniker. Thinking that this will finally force his hand, he orders in for dinner, sets up candles in the penthouse and plans to make an Official Move. Nothing else will do—he’s not ever going to let Peter slip through his fingers, not again.

But when the kid arrives at the Tower, he’s acting like nothing happened. He thanks Tony for picking him up from the bar in Brooklyn and then asks if maybe they could work on the suit for a while. It’s polite, informal but not at all romantic, and Tony can’t help it. He _doubts_. Maybe this isn’t something that Peter wants, not during the light of day. Maybe this lust is just something he feels at night under the covers in his bed. Why the fuck would Peter want a relationship with Tony? Except for Tony’s money, he doesn’t have much else going for him.

So they work on the suit. Dozens of floors away, a meal goes cold, a champagne grows flat, and by the time Tony arrives back up in the penthouse, the candles have burned themselves out. He cleans up, alone.

He goes on.

-

The next three times Peter messages him asking to cum, Tony gives back a simple, “Yes, you can cum.” It’s all that needs said. Anything else and he’s at risk of deluding himself.

-

He’s willing to take what he can get from Peter. The kid is more than capable of providing stimulating conversation, he’s fun to be around. That’s more than can be said for half the population. Maybe Peter isn’t interested in him romantically, but they can still be—Tony gags—_friends_. He tries to invite Peter over to do friendly things, things he might do with any of the Avengers. That’s how they end up in the penthouse on a Friday night, drinking beer (seltzer for Tony) and eating pizza (with all the toppings except for anchovies).

They talk shop, and classes, and friends. Peter tells him about Ned and MJ and what they’re each doing, and Tony listens, eager for every drop of this kid and his life. Tony wants to know it all, wants to savor it all, because he knows how easily it could disappear.

The movie that’s as background noise becomes inadvertently sexy, and even though they haven’t been paying any more than a quarter of their attention to it while they talk, when the sex scene arrives, the conversation dulls until they are both watching, sipping their drinks in silence save for the noises coming from the screen: pants and wet, sucking kisses, and heavy breaths.

“Look at that guy’s abs,” Tony mutters. “Come on. That’s a criminal offense.”

Peter snorts softly. “That’s one crime I would gladly be the victim of.”

“You and me, both, kid.”

It’s suggested that the woman on screen begins to give the man head, and Tony gets lost in the little things about it: the way the actor’s head falls back, how the lamp from beside the bed casts shadows in his collarbones, the furrow in the man’s brow even as one hand is offscreen and tangled in blond curls. There are noises, for Christ’s sake. Fuck, he misses that for himself.

“FRIDAY,” Tony asks. “Is this pornography? Did you slip the wool over my aging eyes and turn me to the X-Rated channels?”

“This is rated R, boss, which according to the Motion Picture Association of America means that—”

“Okay babe, thanks,” Tony says. He takes another sip from his drink to wet his mouth. He’s hyperaware of Peter next to him, just a couch cushion away watching this with him. The kid is sitting completely still, and Tony can’t tell the expression on his face out of the corner of his eye, so he turns to look and—

Oh. Peter is flushed, mouth just a little parted. His eyes are glossy and glued to the screen, and (when Tony’s gaze naturally falls) he is _hard_. Completely hard. Unmistakably hard. Tony’s brain does a 404 ERROR. Page Not Found. Then Peter shoves his plate onto his lap (not that the tent in his pants allows for much more than him to hold it awkwardly above his erection).

“Sorry,” Peter mutters.

“_Yikes_—don’t be. Don’t be! That’s—natural. _I’m_ sorry.” Tony looks back to the screen. Fuck. Now he’s even more aware of Peter, of how the kid can no longer sit still. His breaths are just barely audible, and even though Tony’s head is turned towards the television, he doesn’t see what’s on screen. Every one of his senses is attuned to the younger man next to him.

Peter sits his plate aside. “I’ve got—uh—bathroom.”

Tony feels there’s fire just underneath his skin. He waves a hand, not daring to look. “You don’t have to go.”

“Trust me, I really do—”

“Yeah, I can see that. I just meant that—never mind.” Tony bites his tongue. What is he fucking thinking, almost asking Peter to stay? To jerk off beside him? Maybe the kid is just going in there to calm down, splash some water on his goddamn face. Maybe if Tony wasn’t so hopelessly infatuated and lustful, his mind wouldn’t jump to such dirty conclusions.

“What is it?” Peter asks. He sits back down, gingerly.

Tony still can’t look. “It was a stupid idea, kid. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m worried! I mean—I don’t think you’ve ever had a stupid idea, Mr. Stark.”

“That’s a gross miscalculation, Pete, trust me.”

“I’ve got good judgement,” Peter says. “Tell me and let me decide.”

“I was just going to say—if you were going to go take care of that the old-fashioned way, you could just stay. I mean, you’ll be asking me for permission, anyway, won’t you?”

“You—want to watch me jerk off?” Peter’s voice goes high and squeaky. Dogs all over the New York area hear it, and it makes Tony wince. God, the kid is fucking blunt. But that’s a good thing; at least Tony can trust him to call him out on his bullshit.

“See? Poor, _very_ poor idea—”

“You _want_ to watch me?”

Tony’s mouth opens. He closes it. There’s something about the kid’s tone of voice, something that itches at the back of Tony’s brain though he can’t get a finger on it. Against his better judgement, he risks a glance, and he finds that Peter has turned completely towards him until his back rests against the arm rest at his end of the couch, one leg pulled up onto the cushions. He’s still hard. But it’s his expression: eyes lidded, cheeks still flushed (with embarrassment? arousal?). It wipes Tony’s brain clean like an eraser on a chalkboard.

“I—” Tony begins. “Do you—_want_ me to want to watch you?”

“Do you want me to want you to want to watch me? I mean, you had a point. I’d just be texting you in a minute anyway—not that—_not_ that I just last a minute! I mean—fuck.”

Tony can’t help but laugh. Peter scrubs his palms over his eyes, but he’s smiling. It takes some of the tension out of things, and Tony feels himself slipping out of his own skin and into the roll of Playboy. It’s what the world expects of him, and it’s useful here, it’s easy. Standing, Tony crosses to the armchair where he sits, reclining, holding his glass in his hand. He’s a little hard himself, though Peter can’t probably tell that thanks to positioning and the dark pants. He lifts a leg to rest his ankle on his knee.

“Go on, then,” Tony says. His voice comes out low and dark without asking him for his input, but it’s fine. It makes Peter gulp, throat bobbing as he shifts to take up the entire couch. Laying down the way he is, his erection is even more obvious, downright obscene. This is a picture Tony never thought he would see, one that he never wants to forget.

Peter reaches down and gingerly unbuttons his pants, sliding the zipper down over the bump of his full cock. His eyes slip closed until Tony snaps his fingers, the sound like a firecracker in the quiet room. Peter’s eyes widen when he realizes that Tony wants him to maintain eye contact. He whines, tucking his chin to his chest like he can hide from the older man’s bald gaze.

“You can stop,” Tony says. “Any time you want. No hard feelings.”

Taking a deep breath, Peter shucks his pants and underwear down past the curve of his ass, halfway down his thighs. Both hands link fingers, resting on his stomach which is heaving for breath. Tony takes his time examining every inch of Peter: he is average at best, cut, with a flushed cock that curves straight towards his flat belly. He is completely hairless—a personal preference, or another habit leftover from his time with Quentin Beck?

A noise slips from Peter’s throat, luring Tony’s eyes back to his own. The kid’s face looks tortured, eyes fluttering, mouth red and open. His knuckles are white from how he’s clasping his hands together—and _oh_. He’s waiting for Tony to tell him he can.

Tony nods. Peter’s eyes shut in brief relief, only to open a moment later. One hand drifts down but hesitates. “Pretend I’m not even here,” Tony advises.

Peter says something under his breath—and fuck stupid normal human hearing, because Tony can’t make out what it is. Then Peter reaches out with one thin finger, brushing the pad of his fingertip over the head of his own cock where precum beads. Tony can see from his seat the way the wetness slicks Peter’s finger. When he pulls it away, a line of sticky cum clings like a web between cock and finger, and then the boy _brings it to his mouth to lick it off_. Tony’s cock jumps, no avoiding the truth that he is hard himself right now. Peter can’t tell from his vantage point, not with the way Tony has his ankle perched up on his knee, but how Tony plans to avoid him noticing afterwards, he has no idea.

Peter returns his hand to brush his lax fingers over his cock, trailing them up one side and down the other. He’s a tease—to Tony, but mostly to himself. It’s clear from the way his cock jumps and spits precum that the kid is painfully turned on, but still he doesn’t take himself in hand. Bypassing his cock, he takes his hairless balls into his palm and rolls them, rubbing a thumb against them tenderly. Then he tightens his grip, tighter, until Tony is wincing in sympathy across the room, until the kid whimpers, gritting his teeth. From the way his cock leaks, it’s a good pain. Jesus, the kid is kinky.

Both hands disappear up Peter’s graphic tee, and it’s clear from the way he arches his back that’s he’s playing with his nipples. Are they the same color as his cock? Tony has to know, so he snaps his fingers again until the kid is watching, ears perked like a dog waiting for directions. After motioning with a finger, the kid gets the idea. He tucks the shirt up under his chin, and fuck is he built. Abs—a literal six pack, better than the one on television. Besides a smattering of hair leading down towards his erection, the kid is hairless even on his chest. Normally, Tony prefers hair, the masculinity of it, but there is no need for reminding. Peter is both masculine and feminine, a soft, hard balance.

His nipples are flat, just a shade lighter than his cock. The younger man teases himself here, too, dragging his fingers back and forth, narrowly avoiding where his nipples have tightened into desperate buds. When he finally drags a gentle thumb over one, he shivers, hips jerking upwards even as a soft little sound escapes his mouth. Tony’s own mouth waters. He clenches his jaw, swallowing it down.

He starts a rhythm of pinching and then soothing the ache with gentle fingers. A litany of noises escapes him, whimpers, whines. The head of his cock goes shiny with precum, and Tony’s own aches between his legs, trapped awkwardly in his pants. He doesn’t touch it—he pays it no mind. Peter’s heels dig into the couch cushion, socked toes curling. His eyes are squeezed shut, but Tony has mercy on him for now. It gives him a chance to not have to worry about schooling his hungry facial expressions. There’s never been a more tempting sight than Peter on this couch, hips twitching with aborted thrusts against nothing but air.

“Could you cum like this?” Tony asks. His voice is rough from arousal, though he hopes it will come off as from disuse.

Peter’s eyes open, glassy and dazed. “No sir,” he says, tongue thick, words slurred like he’s drunk though he’s barely finished a single beer. He looks like he hardly knows what he’s saying, like it’s coming out of his mouth unbidden. “Not unless you told me I could.”

Tony inhales, slow, lets it out slower.

When Peter finally grows desperate enough, he leaves one hand to pluck at his tender nipples and the other smooths down his abs towards his cock. It’s just a little more than a handful, and the noise that is torn from Peter’s throat at the first touch has Tony’s eyes slipping shut. He clenches his fingers, around the glass in his hand and where they are curled into a fist on the armrest. He will not touch himself—this is just, just two _friends_, just Peter finding relief and Tony (fuck, what the _fuck_ is Tony doing, what are either of them doing?) supervising.

Peter begins a steady rhythm. Sometimes he leaves his fist steady and then jerks his hips up, fucking into his hand. It looks like torture, like the most difficult way to get off, which is probably why a kinky little shit like Peter enjoys it so much. There’s no need to spit in his palm, not when his cock is constantly leaking, lubricating the way. Sometimes, Peter stops altogether and just uses the pad of his middle finger to rub at his frenulum. His cries are nearly constant, coming with every breath he takes. He’s the most beautiful thing Tony’s ever seen.

And there is no way they can just be friends. Not when Tony feels like this. It will kill him, he thinks. And he’ll have to let it, rather than hurt this kid. But those are thoughts he packs up and puts away, because Peter is back to fisting his cock, quicker now, working his hand and his hips.

“_Mr. Stark_—” Peter cries out, voice tortured. “Can I cum? Please?”

And Tony says:

“No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk to me i'm lonely   
cagestark @ tumblr


	5. Chapter 5

_“No.” _

Peter cries out, wrenching his hand off his cock before the syllable has finished ringing out around the room. The poor tortured thing bobs in the wake of the lost touch, skin a vivid pink. Tony devours the kid’s face, burns it into his memory, because he never wants to forget it: the desperation, the confusion, the tears clinging to his lashes. He doesn’t know why Tony has stopped him, but _he obeyed anyway_. Maybe on instinct. The thought alone lights a fire under Tony’s skin. Fuck, this kid is perfect.

“Mr. Stark—_why_?” gasps Peter. His abs tense, the muscles becoming more pronounced before relaxing, again and again. It becomes clear that he can’t control it, and he reaches down to gather the base of himself and his balls in his grip, squeezing tight. “—please, ‘m _so_ close, fuck, so close.”

“You’ll wait,” says Tony. “Won’t you kid? Because you need permission, and you need it from me. You should know not to put power in my hands, Pete. I’ll just abuse it.”

There are tears in Peter’s eyes. His thin lips are quivering (maybe from the punishing grip he has on his cock, but what if it’s not? What if it’s because Tony is acting like a huge fucking pervert, taking advantage of him?). For a moment, Tony is about to call the whole thing off—he’s only jesting about abusing power, because he never wants to abuse anything that Peter gives him.

But the kid just looks at him with those big, tortured eyes and asks, “Why would I give you power if I didn’t want you to abuse it? God, Mr. Stark, I’m so hard.”

Tony lets out a long, shaky breath. His leg prickles, circulation waning from where it’s up resting on his knee, but when he lowers it, Peter’s eyes drop to between them where Tony’s hard cock stands unmistakable. Peter gapes, scrambling up onto his elbows to get a better vantage point. “Mr. Stark,” he breaths, “Are you—?”

“Very,” says Tony. Why was he so worried about letting Peter know that? The kid got hard from watching some simulated sex scenes; Tony has a real pornographic fantasy playing out right in front of his eyes, of course he’s hard. The younger man looks awed, and one hand slips off the couch, drifting out like Tony is right there next to him, like he could reach out and touch him if he only tried.

“Oh fuck,” Peter whispers. He can’t seem to close his mouth. His face is redder than his cock, but the glossy look in his eyes shows that arousal is beating out any inhibitions he has. “Can I—can I see you? Can I touch you? God, could I suck you off, please?”

With the way the kid looks at him, sounds for him, so pretty and desperate—it would be too easy to mistake this lust for affection. Tony has to remind himself that in this way, Peter is similar to the public: there are many people who appreciate Tony’s body, the power he has and how that affects the dynamic of his sex. But there are few—very, very few—who would be willing to love him. Scars, Anxiety, Peculiarities, and All. He gets it. He’s a lot to handle. Peter can want to suck Tony’s cock without loving him. People do that all the time.

Can Tony let him, though? Can Tony see those eyes staring up at him, mouth stretched around his cock, tongue that so often is sassing him these days tracing the ridge of him? Can he experience that and know that the kid _does not love him_?

“Don’t be greedy,” Tony says. Power floods him, and Peter is the conduit with those bedroom eyes, the way he can’t stop wetting his mouth with his sweet little tongue, the way his cock continues to twitch with every movement Tony makes. Slipping on this persona is comfortable, like taking his winter jacket out of the closet and putting it on for the first time that season. It still fits. It always will. Even if he’d rather be wearing something else—anything else. “You want to see my cock? Where are your manners? Ask me for it.”

The kid’s toes curl in their socks at Tony’s filthy language. His eyes are glued to the older man’s crotch. “Please, Mr. Stark. _Please_ may I see your cock?”

Tony stands. He’s not even five-foot-ten but the way Peter looks at him makes him feel six feet tall and more. He reaches down to his belt. Peter’s chest heaves with each breath, but his poor aching cock seems to be forgotten. His eyes are transfixed, face in a daze, and he shivers at the sound the belt makes when Tony pulls it free. The kid’s mouth moves, a silent, _yes_. After Tony resumes his seat, he reaches into the opening of his jeans and pulls out his cock. Fuck, it feels good to have it out and in his hand, and he can’t help but give it a few long strokes to ease the ache. Peter makes a noise, sounding like the wind has been punched out of him.

“I want it,” Peter groans, one hand tugging at his hair, the other clenched into a fist on his abdomen. “Quit being stingy and give it to me!”

“Quit being a brat or I’ll put it away,” Tony says—and Jesus, in a million years he never would have thought those words would come out of his mouth to Peter Parker. “You take what I give you, no more. Understood?”

Peter whines in his throat even as he nods. For a moment, he closes his eyes and takes several deep, slow breaths. Tony lets him scrape together some composure between those two soft hands. He hopes to destroy it again and again, anyway.

“Actually? I _don’t_ understand,” Peter says at length, opening his eyes to pierce Tony with his stare. “You won’t let me cum, and you won’t let me earn it. What do you _want_?”

Those words—_earn it_—are like electricity with the way they make Tony jolt. There are a million ways he’d like Peter to earn it, if the kid feels so obliged: sucking Tony off and taking his cum down his throat; kneeling up on the couch with his hands against the backrest, letting Tony fuck his thighs; by holding himself open so Tony can rim him to tears.

(And a distant voice wonders, is that the only reason he asked for Tony’s body at all? Because he feels like he has to _earn_ his orgasms? That chills Tony to the bone. He can’t let himself take advantage of this young man he cares about, not when they’re so obviously not on the same page.)

“It’s not your job to understand,” Tony says. Peter’s hands are rubbing restlessly up and down his abs, fingertips brushing softly through where pubic hair would be. The sight is soothing, transfixing. “Because there’s no sense in it. I said no because I wanted to. It’s that simple. I’m a scientist, kid, I had to see what would happen.

“Go on and touch yourself again.”

“_Thank you_,” Peter breaths, eyes falling shut. He resumes touching his cock with fast, desperate strokes. For every two passes his erection makes through his fist, Tony gives one to his own, languid, absently.

The ice swirling in Tony’s glass has Peter’s eyes cracking open, and his face twists at the sight of Tony jerking himself off. If he hadn’t cried out, hips jerking up from the couch cushion, Tony might have thought it was a bad thing. Instead, he reaches down and wraps his hand around the base of himself and squeezes tight, face pinched. He was about to _cum_.

Tony laughs.

“You have more restraint than I would have pegged a kid of your age having,” Tony admits. He works to keep his voice level.

“Didn’t always,” Peter gasps. “Mr. Stark could you—could you move your leg a little so I could see better? Fuck, thank you, _fuck_. My—my stamina wasn’t the ah, the best. Now I can stay here on the edge for ages.”

“Why would you ever want to do that,” Tony wonders softly.

“To be good for you,” Peter says. 

“Fuck,” Tony mutters, rubbing his thumb over the head of his cock. Peter mimics him. “The things you say could really go to a man’s head, Pete.”

“Just want them to go to yours,” Peter gasps. He holds his fist still again, works his hips up like he’s fucking into something, or some_one_. The thought makes Tony shiver. He can’t help but imagine what the sex would be like if he and Peter were together, about letting Peter top just to see the blissed out look on the kid’s face, just to feel the power in his thrusts.

So many opportunities. So much joy and pleasure and, yeah, he’ll say it—_love_. He knows he has to take the risk, has to ask Peter to be his. If there’s the slightest chance that the younger man sees him as anything more than a mentor, a friend, a teammate, then Tony has to try. But now, with his cock out and Peter’s cock out and both of them aching to cum? Now might not be the best time.

“Is this what you looked like that night you called me drunk?” Tony wonders aloud. “Spread out like this in your little twin bed, May in the other room? Absolutely filthy. I fucking love it. You better not muffle your sounds here like you had to when you were there; I want to hear every last noise.”

“_Mr. Sta-ark_,” Peter says, long and low. “I’m close again—”

“Guess what I’m going to say,” Tony challenges. “Go on, I want you to guess.”

“No?” Peter whines, eyes big and lips downturned.

“What? Why would you say that? Do you think I’m a _monster_? Go ahead, kid, cum—”

Peter’s back arches obscenely, head pushed into the couch cushions. The muscles of his thighs bulge as his hand blurs with he speed he uses to jerk his cock. He shouts, all the breath rushing from his lungs until his mouth is open in a silent scream. The first spurts from his flushed cock are explosive, painting all the way up to the tense tendons of the kid’s neck. Tony clenches his hands into fists, wishing to tuck his cock away into his pants but not daring to touch it, lest he blow his load like a fucking teenager. It only gets worse when the kid moans his name, the sweetest _Mr. Stark, oh, _thank_ you _that the man has ever heard. He closes his eyes, savoring it, even if he loses the sight of Peter still tugging at his mostly-hard cock giving little noises of pleasure and overstimulation.

After some deep breaths, Tony shifts to put his cock away, zipping up his pants over the bulge it creates. Even as his balls throb from not cumming, his heart feels heavy, anxiety hammering at the back of his skull. Peter still lays flushed on the couch, eyes closed, pearlescent cum cooling on his abs. When he opens his eyes and glances at Tony, the blooming joyful smile dies on his lips. He sits up, cum dripping down to his lap.

“Mr. Stark—are you okay? What’s wrong? God, did I—did I do something? Of course, I did something. I did—I did whatever _this_ is. Oh my God, I’m so sorry—”

“Pete,” Tony says. He stands, shuffling a little awkwardly around his deflating cock over to the bar where he grabs something for Peter to use to clean himself up with. The kid’s face is red, the harsh flush of embarrassment. Tony’s heart clenches—he looks ashamed of himself, which is the last thing Tony wants. “Stop. You’re freaking out. It’s okay. I obviously wanted that to happen, you did nothing wrong, okay? If anything, I’m the one in the wrong.”

“What?” Peter says, voice sharp. “How? You didn’t _do_ anything. Even when I begged you.”

“Of course, I didn’t do anything,” Tony says, voice raising. “What, did you want me to take advantage of you?”

“That’d be great!” Peter says, throwing his hands up. The rag he cleaned himself with sits forgotten on the couch as he stands to tuck his softening cock back into his pants. Then he counts off instances on his fingers: “You didn’t come on to me in the limo when I was drunk, you won’t even let me suck you off—fuck, Mr. Stark. I just want you to take me apart!”

“And I want _more_,” Tony snaps.

The silence lasts a lifetime or a moment, no more and no less.

Peter sucks in a breath. “_What_?”

Tony’s mouth goes dry. His hands are shaking, so he shoves them into his pockets. Peter looks at him with the most peculiar expression, and maybe if Tony were better at reading the nuances of emotion, he’d be able to tell what that face is saying with the brows drawn together, the mouth softly parted, the throat bobbing as the kid swallows.

“Look,” Tony says, glancing out at the window. Nighttime in NYC is beautiful but Tony can’t see anything beyond their figures’ reflections in the glass. “Maybe ten years ago, I was more flexible about romance when it came to sex, but these days—I want them to go hand in hand.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying. Are you saying what I—what I _think_ you’re saying?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Fuck.” Tony sits heavily in the chair that just minutes before, he’d been masturbating in. How did he get himself into such a mess, falling in love with such an endearing, charming young man? Tony has always had a habit of making the poorest choices, and while Peter himself is an incredible choice in a partner—it’s a pipe dream. When people say shoot for the stars, they don’t mean Peter Parker. He’s extrasolar.

Peter’s socked feet appear at the edges of Tony’s vision. The kid kneels down until there’s nowhere else to look but at him. Tony shuts his eyes.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter says. “T-Tony? Ask me. It’s your turn, isn’t it? To ask _me_.”

Tony’s no coward. He hasn’t been since those days spent in Afghanistan. His anxiety has never stopped him from doing the things that scare him, because he knows that if something does frighten him, it’s because it’s important. Because it needs to be done. Peter is worth taking the leap, even if he falls so, so short. So he looks the kid in the eyes and asks for permission: “Can I take you on a date? I’m thinking about laying on one of those bearskin rugs in front of a fireplace in Aspen, I figured you could come along if you wanted. Or the Finger Lakes, which are nice this time of year—I know a guy, several guys who could get us—No? We could leave the country too, Paris, Venice, Rio de Janeiro—”

“Yes,” says Peter. A grin blooms on his face, even as he tries to smother it with his hand. “Yes! I’d love to go on a-a date with you. But really, Tony, we don’t have to go anywhere. You could make me a dinner right here, and I’d love it. Or we could order out. Can you cook? _I_ can’t—”

“You said—yes?”

“Yes!”

Tony blinks. “You know I meant date romantically, right?”

“Is there any other meaning for the word date?”

“Well, I’d hardly know, I haven’t been on a date in—too long to specify without my ego taking a terrible blow. Holy shit, Pete.” The kid kneels up until he is more level with Tony’s face where the man still sits in the armchair—but Tony doesn’t like that, so he slips off the chair onto his aching knees, and he lets himself wrap the kid in a hug and squeeze the breath out of him.

“Tony?” Peter murmurs into his shoulder.

“What, kid?”

They pull apart, close enough for their breaths to mingle, for Tony to see that Peter’s gaze is glued to Tony’s mouth. “Will you ask me something else?” he wonders, breathlessly.

Tony takes his chin in his hand, thumb brushing over the kid’s thin lips. “Peter—can I kiss you?”

“No.”

Tony laughs until tears come to his eyes distorting the precious, clever, rotten young man in front of him.

“I’m only kidding,” Peter amends, eyes sparkling. “But now you know how it feels, asshole. Come here—”

They kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this didn't have as much sexiness as I'd hoped. Tony's inner voice was so insecure, so anxious, he wouldn't let me do much else. i hope you enjoyed it anyway. leave compliments and complaints below, and find me on tumblr at cagestark.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the start of a celebration fic because i got 1k followers on tumblr *woo*. Come follow me there cagestark.


End file.
